Let's start with a brief run down of what each of the teams has accomplished recently, as well as their records since the qualifiers for TI.
Wildcard Contenders
Complexity - Chessie / Limmp / Swindlezz / Zfreek / Handsken - 1 win, 4 losses since TI qualifiers (Secret 0-2, FRIENDS 1-2)
This team played a bit better than most probably expected in the TI qualifiers, with wins over DC and EG in the group stage as well as a close 2-3 series loss to DC in the final series. That said, their games at SL i-League this weekend were not convincing. They lost to a pretty good Team Secret 2-0 in two relatively stompy games,then lost a series to FRIENDS 1-2 in some of the stranger games I've seen.
The biggest problem with this team seems to be a small hero pool. Besides Chessie, most of their players have played only 3 or 4 heroes with any regularity, and they don't seem to deviate much from those core heroes (Zfreek on Earth Spirit, Handsken on Wisp or Dazzle or Oracle, Swindlez on Bat or Slardar or Axe, Chessie on Tiny or TA). From a skill perspective, Swindlez has been struggling mightily. That said, I think this team is pretty decent, and one bad series against FRIENDS doesn't doom them to failure at TI.
Escape Gaming - Era / Qojqva / Khezu / Yapzor / Synderen - 3 wins, 5 losses since TI qualifiers (0-2 Empire, 2-1 Power Rangers, 1-2 Vega)
Probably the most unexciting team to come out of Europe for TI in a long time, they have been pretty "meh" since the qualifiers. This team is extremely dependent on Qojqva, and when he has a bad game they almost never win. However, they do have a few things in their favor: they do have the ability to somewhat define the meta (Tinker coming back into the fold during the qualifiers was basically almost completely their doing), and they play heroes that other teams won't touch like Lone Druid. That said, they are extremely dependent on a few specific comfort picks for Khezu like Slardar and Faceless Void, and their support duo is probably the weakest in the tournament. The results they posted since the qualifier are more in line with my expectations for them, and I feel they over achieved during the qualifiers.
EHome - iceiceice / oldchicken / Eleven / Lanm / Fenrir - 14 wins, 5 losses since TI qualifiers (1-2 VG.R, 1-1 Wings, 1-1 CDEC.Y)
The team that has definitely flown under the radar the most since the TI qualifiers, they have quietly been taking games off of pretty good teams like VG.R and Wings since the TI qualifiers. The re acquisition of eleven has made a big difference for them, and they are playing pretty well. Even if the competition they've faced recently hasn't been the strongest, they have put up some great results and they have the pedigree to match.
The support duo is strong, but they have potentially the worst mid player in professional Dota 2 since Swindlez stopped playing mid (kek). While he is their captain and they rely on him for strategic decision making, he almost never wins his lane forcing his team to make up for his laning elsewhere. This either requires a rotation from Lanm early on to help buffer the pressure from his lane opponent or forces old chicken to play low impact but steady mid heroes like Death Prophet, Viper, and Dragon Knight.
Execration - Nando / Abed / RR / Tims / Kimo - 20 wins, 4 losses since TI qualifiers (2-0 Orange, 4-0 Power Gaming, 1-2 MIneski, 3-1 Mongolz)
You know, I wanted to find a reason to trash this team. I went back into their previous games, trying to find some reason why this record above is not indicative of something positive in this team, and while the competition wasn't the best, I couldn't find it. They are actually a pretty good team, and if you've been watching any of the Mr. Cat invitational over the past two weeks you would have seen them crushing teams left and right. They took two games off of Fnatic in the TI qualifiers and have beaten pretty much everyone else put in front of them since then. Nando and Abed are quite good for core players, and Abed might actually be the best Meepo player on planet earth (yes, potentially even better than w33haa and nOtail, go check some replays).
That said, this team lacks a ton of international experience and while I think they can cheese their way to a couple of wins, I don't think they will be able to really make any huge waves. That said, the potential variance on their performance is huge and if they upset a team like Complexity or Escape it's going to be with absolute style and hilarity!
The Verdict - How They Match Up
While overall quality is important for how teams will come into TI, when you have such a small pool specific match-ups matter a lot.
I think EHome is probably the best team on paper here, but they have an extremely unfortunate draw in that each of these teams in the wildcard rely on snowballing mid players to win a lot of their games (Limmp, Qojqva, and Abed). Because EHome has probably the weakest mid player in the entire tournament, they could get exploited early on in the laning phase with their weakest link and potentially never recover.
Once we get away from mid lane, at least in my experience with TI tournaments, having a great captain and a good support duo is the most important aspect to succeeding. With that in mind, I think it's probably unlikely that Execration and Escape Gaming can contend with EHome and Complexity in this regard, particularly since Yapzor, Kimo, and Tims all lack any real experience on the international stage. This is particularly bad for Execration, as they don't have the steadying force of someone like Synderen to balance out their youth and inexperience.
With all that in mind, I think that EHome has the best chance of advancing through the wildcard stage, with Complexity the second most likely to advance to the main event in second. However, because of how reliant each wildcard team that isn't EHome is on their mid player, we could see some targeted strategies toward EHome that leverage an uneven lane matchup into a victory and provide completely different results! Even though EHome is most likely to do the best in the main event out of these teams, they may not get the the chance because of the strangely unfortunate matchup they find for themselves in the wildcard.